The most recommended books on eunuchs

Anne Perry is a superb mystery writer who ventured once into the Byzantine world with this novel and I am so glad she did. The story takes place in 1273, twelve years after the overthrow of the Latin rulers who had occupied Constantinople since the horrific attack by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The city still struggles to recover and a young woman, Anna Lascaris, who has learned medicine from her father, decides to disguise herself as a eunuch to more easily find out who framed her brother for murder, which resulted in his exile to a distant monastery. Poisonous political intrigue swirls around Anna/Anastasius as she practices the healing arts while searching for clues about who was the true killer.   

We follow the slave, Taita, an expert in art, poetry, medicine, and engineering after he is commanded to look after a young princess married off to the Pharoah. Smith’s portrayal of ancient Egypt during the era of the pharaohs will enthrall you, all while weaving a heart-racing tale of bravery, heroism, revenge, and love. I particularly had a fondness for the faithful and affectionate friendship he had with the Queen all throughout her life.

Byzantine history has only sporadically inspired historical fiction, although Empress Theodora, wife of Emperor Justinian, has had more than a few novels written about her. I’ve read and enjoyed many of them but this book is one of the best. Her dramatic life encompassed the deadly Nike riots, the building of the magnificent Hagia Sophia, and the Justinianic Plague. And did I mention that she was a courtesan prior to marrying Justinian? Martin’s Theodora is a glorious and sympathetic woman, even if flawed. The author tells her story wonderfully through the eyes of a court eunuch!

This is one of the first books I found when I was scrounging around for gay literature in Indian bookshops in the early 1980s. I re-read it every few years; as one of Oscar Wilde’s characters remarks, “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

Renault brings the ancient Greek world to life as no other novelist has. She delineates the wonderfully erotic and moving relationship between Alexander the Great and his Persian lover, Bagoas, who narrates the story.

This book introduced a whole new way of travel and history writing for me. It beautifully merges the experiences of the author, his interactions with people, and the history of the city he is engaged with. I loved how he used everyday conversations and experiences to link it back to historical moments and told a chronological story of an amazing city. The book is important to me because it also taught me that travel writing can happen within one’s home and one’s own city. One doesn’t need to travel hundreds of miles, in a foreign country, to engage in travel writing. It helped me conceptualize travel writing in a new way.

Mystery writer Steven Saylor’s recreations of late Republican Rome are the best out there. The Venus Throw finds Saylor’s detective, Gordianus the Finder, investigating the death of an Egyptian ambassador visiting the city. Through Gordianus’ search we meet a range of Romans known from historical sources including a noble woman, a love poet, and a eunuch priest of the eastern goddess Cybele. Saylor captures the variety of the city’s inhabitants and its places. You step into elegant houses, a dive bar with sour wine, and public baths where the floor is “heated to just the right temperature by the hot-water pipes underneath.” The Venus Throw is not the first entry in the Gordianus series but you can start with it, as I did, and then read all the others. One of these books’ many strengths is attention to the lives of slaves.

Just as reading the Cadfael novels of Ellis Peters primes so many people to want to see Shrewsbury so too do the murders and intrigues investigated by Jason Goodwin’s Ottoman administrator, the eunuch Yashim, provide the same incentive to walk around Istanbul. The old city encompassed by the Byzantine walls still has so many of the buildings which feature as the 1836 setting for the first of this series of unusual historical detective novels and Yashim’s creator is so obviously both a knowledgeable historian and a great storyteller. And you are going to fall in love with Yashim and his cronies – that’s a given!

This is the second and final volume in Parker-Chan’s breathtaking Radiant Emperor duology.

I love the alternate, 14th-century China setting and the fact that, while this is a fantasy, the focus is much more on the characters’ emotions, inner lives, and relationships than on the speculative elements. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of high-stakes plot developments, because there are!

But each character’s arc is a detailed study of how past suffering can set people on horribly destructive paths. Some of these characters cannot help hurting themselves in their commitment to achieving things they’d probably be better off letting go of.

The ways in which their paths cross make for incredibly interesting character dynamics. This novel is engrossing and gorgeously written.

My favorite Ming dynasty source. It is rich with details on the eunuch institution during the Ming dynasty including its supply chain— the parts of society and of the world where eunuchs were historically drawn. Described here, are the various agencies within the Beijing Forbidden City where Ming dynasty eunuchs worked: Carpentry, Palace Servants, Palace Foods, Royal Clothing, the Nursing Home, and others, including a Toilet Paper agency. Readers not only gain insights on the imperial palace’s operations, but also on the eunuch ranking system, the emperors’ policies concerning eunuchs, and the rise of powerful eunuchs in the Ming secret police (Eastern Depot) and in Ming diplomacy. The latter came to its apogee with Admiral Zheng He, himself a eunuch, leading the Ming fleet during seven world voyages.

This book is set in an alternative Mediterranean during what feels like the 400s BCE. There are a lot of would-be philosophers floating around and being pretentious (the philosophy major in me rejoiced). There’s Damiskos, a former soldier with a limp who investigates a mystery. And there’s Varazda, a nonbinary dancer who’s also a spy.

Although the murder plot was a lot of fun, and the multiple cultures and languages the author plays with are exciting, the real highlight of this book is the way the two main characters talk through and negotiate their relationship. Both of them have been hurt in different ways and have baggage, and the way they figure out consent between them, the discussions and power balancing, is a delight.